The myth of the millennial nation is one that describes the vision and perception held by the American people that suggests that the United States is the Nation responsible for heralding in the second coming of Jesus Christ. Hughes ties this vision to the American idea of manifest destiny which held much responsibility for our nation's growth and overpowering force, not merely in our hemisphere but in all of the world. Hughes initially dissects the myth into its national cause and effect, both good and bad. His emphasis on the crude and regrettable parts of our nation's history may lead readers to assume his discontent with our nation's history; though eventually his revealed views are more salutary and beneficial. I find Hughes' apparent apathy and objectivity on this subject to be most disturbing and even perplexing. Hughes starts the chapter by giving consideration to the millennial myth by using it as a means to harmonize the other myths into a quintessential and more universally held belief. From this, the nation could legitimize its expansion and influence into the remaining and unestablished parts of the New World. Hughes begins this explanation by tying these thoughts to earlier Puritan values and movements (95-96).
Tindall, George Brown, and David Emory Shi. America: A Narrative History. New York: W.W. Norton Co., 1997.
James Loewen wrote the book ?Lies My Teacher Told ME? to help the students of the United States become aware of their true history. This book attempts to show how and why American history has been taught the way it has without regard for the truth. Mr. Loewen had compared twelve different history textbooks they are: The Great Republic, The American Way, Land of Promise, Rise of the American Nation, Challenge of Freedom, American Adventures, Discovering American History, The American Tradition, Life and Liberty, The United States ? A History of the Republic, Triumph of the American Nation and The American Pageant. Loewen has argued his cases for Heroification, Euorcentrism and the first settlers, and Racism in our history. He has done this knowing fully that most people do not want to know the harsh realities of our nations past. The United States has tried to maintain a positive image throughout history. Unfortunately, it has many skeletons in its closet that need to come out to heal this great nation on many levels. If the public at large new the real role of racism in our nations infancy and how men tried to pursue their way of thinking as opposed to what is good for the country they would be ashamed at what the United States has stood for in the past.
Foner, Eric, and John A. Garraty, eds. The Reader's Companion to American History. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1991.
Hollitz, John. Thinking Through the Past: A Critical Thinking Approach to U.S. History Vol I: to 1877. 4th ed. Boston: Wadsworth, 2010. Print.
Tindall, George Brown and David Emory Shi. “America: A Narrative History.” Fifth Ed. New York: W. W. Norton & Co. 1999.
This book is written from a perspective foreign to most Americans. Historically, American students are taught from a single perspective, that being the American perspective. This approach to history (the single perspective) dehumanizes the enemy and glorifies the Americans. We tend to forget that those on the opposing side are also human.
This gallery was not in place at the birth of the political nation. America, as a young republic, found itself immediately in the middle of an identity crisis. Having effected a violent separation from England and its cultural and political icons, America was left without history--or heroes. Michael Kammen, in his Mystic Chords of Memory explains that "repudiation of the past left Americans of the young republic without a firm foundation on which to base a shared sense of their social selves." (65) A new national story was needed, yet the Revolutionary leaders, obvious choices for mythical transformation, were loath to be raised to their pedestals. "Even though every nation needs a mythic explanation of its own creation, that process was paradoxically elaborated by the reluctance of Revolutionary statesmen to have their story told prematurely." (Kammen, 27) To be raised above others would be undemocratic, they believed. The human need to explain origins, to create self-identity through national identity, was thwarted by this reluctance. A vacuum was created, and was slowly filled with the image...
Tindall, George, and David Shi. America: A Narrative History. Ed. 9, Vol. 1. New York: WW. Norton & Company, 2013. 544. Print.
Millennials are well on their way to redefining the “American Dream.” In a world where they have to constantly exercise critical thinking to financially survive the debts the average Millennial life incurs, suggesting that their reluctance to fall into the status quo will hurt them is a stagnant, inflexible view. It only hurts those entrenched in a narrow worldview limited to one accepted lifestyle and standard of living. To this life, Millennials are thoroughly disillusioned. They’re causing all these economic ‘problems’ because they aren’t buying into the hazy suburban complacency that the traditional dream represents. It’s not just that it costs too much to get there, it’s mostly that it’s hardly achievable. Contemporary high school is less of a system for education as it is an Olympic triathlon. Students must jump through every well-nigh arbitrary hoop, competing against each other for the most scholarship money based on the right opinion said in the right words. Who was in the most meaningless clubs at the same time? Who happened to attend a school with the most extra-curricular activities or AP courses? When school – that
Tindall, George and David Emory Shi. America: A Narrative History Brief Ninth Edition-Vol. 2. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2013. Document.
It is a dominant stereotype that the Millennial Generation possesses a great sense of entitlement. When one is entitled, they feel as if they should be more privileged and seem to behave as if they are more deserving than others. Most readers are in agreeance with those who argue that Generation Y, otherwise referred to as the Millennial generation, is an entitled group of people, but not everyone is in agreeance with who is responsible for the sense of entitlement that these Millennials possess.
Edmund Morgan begins American Slavery, American Freedom the Ordeal of Colonial Virginia with a paradox. He presents his readers with the passionate rhetoric of men like Thomas Jefferson: belief in liberty and abhorrance for slavery and reminds us that he, and others like him, were slaveholders. Morgan asserts that the rise in such beliefs accompanied and in fact were dependent upon slavery. He claims that this contradiction is "American" and it is important, as Americans, that we understand its origins and development (5).
Not Only Are Millennials Redefining Adulthood but Are They Changing the American Dream as Well?
...nary of American History. Ed. Stanley I. Kutler. 3rd ed. Vol. 6. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2003. 135. Student Resources in Context. Web. 19 Apr. 2014.
Historical novels written by authors who experience the history are great sources for a more first hand account of history that is often one sided and simply based on facts. Historical fiction can make the history more personal and enjoyable to the reader reading it, but it can also be deceiving if the reader is not already at least vaguely familiar with the history. God’s Bits of Wood and No Longer at Ease express and explain colonization and the way that it affected those who were colonized in a way that textbooks often cannot. When comparing the two novels, differences in the nature of the ruling and similarities in the impact it has on various social classes and generations are evident. Though historical novels are a great source, it must be kept in mind that they are novels and should not be relied on for one hundred percent factual evidence.